Cornell Chronicle

Niederdeppe says:

“This proposal reflects growing recognition that e-cigarette companies market these products in ways that attract young people to use them. These efforts have contributed to a public health crisis in which a new generation of young people are becoming addicted to nicotine, which in and of itself can have harmful effects on the brain. Many of these young people will transition to combustible cigarettes, which has much greater health risks.

“Much of the public debate around e-cigarettes has focused on their potential to reduce harm by encouraging smokers of combustible cigarettes to switch. It is difficult to see how flavors like ‘cotton candy’ and ‘gummy bears’ are designed to appeal to adult smokers; they clearly appeal to youth. Banning the use of these and other flavors would be an important first step in reducing the largely unregulated marketing of these products in ways that appeal to youth.”

Rice says:

"From an environmental side of things, this is an encouraging development.  I’ve been active in briefing government officials on impacts of ocean noise on marine life, and explaining possible impacts that oil and gas exploration and extraction would have if the Atlantic coast were opened up for drilling.  In terms of technical details, drilling itself is only part of the problem. Much of the ocean noise impacts to marine life results from exploring for subsea oil deposits through the use of seismic airgun surveys (and this happens to identify where to drill). These airgun surveys are extremely loud, last for months, and travel over 500 km (we’ve published work on this in the Gulf of Mexico in 2016). These sounds from airguns overlap with the frequency range of peak hearing sensitivity in many whales and fish, and may lead to individual- and population-level impacts. 

"An interesting legal question that will emerge is that because these oil exploration sounds travel such far distances, they will likely cross state waters. It will be interesting to see what Florida is legally able to do should oil exploration be permitted in Georgia or the Carolinas, where these sounds impact Florida’s marine life. In addition to its reefs and subtropical marine ecosystems, the northern Atlantic coast of Florida is a critical habitat area for North Atlantic right whales, which come down to Florida to calve in the winters. The fact that Florida has banned this activity is good news for the ocean, though additional noise sources threatening Florida marine life will remain."

Carlson says:

“Most of the post-election analysis is likely to focus on issues with a return to divided government in Washington. This misses a much more fundamental point: the deepening division within the country between red and blue states.  The coasts and metro centers remain quite liberal, while the rural center has become even more conservative. This election was largely about identity politics and cultural values much more than it was about any specific policies.

“Despite the fact that they are arguably suffering the most as a result of the President's trade war with China, rural voters widely cast their votes for candidates on the ballot who were most closely aligned with Trump. Within such a climate I suspect China barely registered in the minds of most voters.  As a result, moving forward both parties will only deal with China through the prism of what has become a zero-sum battle between them over who will govern the United States now and in 2020.

“For Democrats there is little to be gained by taking a gentler approach to China.  For Republicans, China serves as convenient target upon which to project the fears of their core supporters. Above and beyond this, the President's whims, informed by the anti-free trade views of his closest advisors, will then continue to drive China policy.  Given his unpredictability, this capriciousness – more than anything else coming out of Washington, D.C. – is what in all likelihood worries China's leaders the most.”

Scott says:

“The Florida proposition restoring the vote to felons is for those who have completed parole/probation, are not currently incarcerated, and do not have a murder or sexual offense crime. I would expect this to take the number of eligible felons down to 1 million. I'm seeing about 400,000 in jail, prison, parole, or probation and estimate that another 100,000 will have sex-related or murder/manslaughter type charges. 

“The next thing is to ask whether the Republican controlled house will encourage them to vote, or whether there will be statutes passed to expand parole and probation in order to disenfranchise the newly enfranchised voters.

“On bulk, I think the measure is very positive. Enfranchising a million voters is nothing small. It is a big deal and a shift in American criminal justice policy thinking in relation to the concept of rehabilitation and second chances.”

Weiss says:

“Widespread mistrust of the press as the purveyor of ‘fake news’ began with the Armistice of 1918. In the case of Germany, the press maintained a triumphalist approach, suppressing stories about the military disasters of the summer of 1918 and running uninterrupted editorials that victory was near. Throughout the war, troops who had just suffered massive losses of men and territory were dismayed to read optimistic accounts of battles unrecognizable to those that had participated in them. As the saying went, in portraying wars in the press, truth was the first casualty.

“The Armistice of 1918 and the Paris Peace Conference that followed it marked the introduction of America as a world power, physically and morally. Not noticed as often in the history books, however, has been the fact that American participation in this lament of loss and senselessness was minimal. For Americans, the awakening to the darkness of modernity would not come until World War II and its own postwar questioning.”